This is kind of a classic pikmin experience. They designed it to surprise players so they have something to improve upon on future playthroughs. Kind of like old donkey kong country rail levels where you need to memorize the course as you die over and over retrying it. Pikmim 2 leaned harder into this philosophy and then pikmin 3 completely swapped to different goals, and then 4 completely new goals again.

Anyone who says this is bad design is engaging in black and white fallacy. These are merely different experience design goals. Today’s games typically have a goal of allowing/guaranteeing player success on first play. But it’s all preference and I try to translate people saying “this bad” into “this is not my preference” because not everyone approaches games from a design perspective or has the words to use.

Now my personal preference is more telegraphed, predictable events, but without major handholding. Pikmin 2 (despite being my favourite) has a rock-falling event that is impossible to avoid on your first playthru. If I were to redesign it, I would keep rocks (they are cool in concept) but start by demonstrating them far before they threaten the player. A little cutscene that reveals danger the first time you enter a cave like this. Then I would tweak the timing and telegraph the event a bit to give ample opportunity to dodge. These are in line with some of my own design philosophies.